Category: Poems

I took us to placeswhere it wasdifficult to hear each otherover the wind,over the waves.I took us to places where it wasdifficult to see each other,hands wipingthe hair and the mistfrom our faces.

I read a review of one placeso close to the shore that the“waves were too loudfor conversation.”

Take usto that place.Where we can’t speakwithout beinginterruptedby the weather.Where we can’t speakof anything morethan what we gather at our feet –agates and abandoned shellsof moon snails,small stones with faces.Line them up along a crookedpiece of driftwood.

Then walk out along the shore,to scan the water for creatures,pointing to the faintest clearingin the clouds,over the the Olympics.

~ Megan M. Codera

Like this:

I know this tunnel
with cracked concrete walls
where the ground
grows through.
Mosses and the thinnest weeds.
Puddles where the wall meets the floor.
A quiet
that shuts out the world,
echos
only
what stirs ahead
echos
only
what shifts behind.
Boys once waited
against these walls,
boys once hid
against these walls,
torn between the war above
and the pull, the pierce
of home.
Then after the war,
couples snuck in
for a kiss,
creatures darted in
from the rain,
brothers lured
little sisters
as far as the dark
and flicked off
the flashlight.
Now it is too dark,
crumbling,
and damp
to find solace.
It’s somehow
smaller
and less mysterious.
But that quiet
still
cuts out
the world.